It’s that time of year again, when we are on election overload with gaudy signs blotting the roadsides, mailers and seemingly non-stop TV spots either extolling the virtues of the candidates or letting us know how dishonest and corrupt they are. If we can believe everything we’re hearing and reading in these negative ads, we are in a whole lot of trouble.
Read the entire article in the Oct. 30th issue of the Express.
Union General Philip Sheridan had been chosen to lead the Army of the Shenandoah in an effort to sever the lifeline sustaining the south, the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, as General Ulysses S Grant put a stranglehold on the Confederacy with the siege of Petersburg and General William T. Sherman closed off Atlanta. In September of 1864, Sheridan had won two major battles at Winchester and Fisher’s Hill.
Read the entire article in the October 16th edition of the Express.
All of us who grew up in this area a few years back know that song which was written by Thomas Allen back in 1905. We sang it in school. It was Americana. For us in the Mechanicville-Stillwater-Waterford-Halfmoon area, it was our own history. We live in an area where a century and a half ago the Erie Canal and the Champlain Canal were both life-giving arteries that made transportation, settlement and commerce possible throughout northern and central New York in the days before there were planes, trains and automobiles, big trucks and superhighways. The barges and passenger boats that plied the waters of these amazing canals in the 19th and early 20th centuries were for the most part powered by mules walking the towpaths.
Read the entire article in the Oct. 9th issue of the Express.
The Ice Bucket Challenge. Who in this country hasn’t heard of it, participated in it, rejoiced in it, derided it or declined it? This craze that dominated electronic media and spiraled all over the country in the past several months is a good thing. I know that after a while, people began to get weary of seeing everybody and his brother, mother, father, sister, kids and grandkids, celebrities and sports stars pouring buckets of ice water over their heads, all in the name of raising money for research to find a cure for ALS, but don’t knock it until you fully understand what it’s all about.
Read the entire article in the Sept. 18th issue of the Express.
General Philip Sheridan had his orders.
“Give the enemy no rest. Do all the damage to railroads and crops you can. Carry off stock of all descriptions, and negroes, so as to prevent further planting. If the war is to last another year, we want the Shenandoah Valley to remain a barren waste”.
With these words, Union Commanding General Ulysses S. Grant made it very clear to Sheridan, recently appointed commander of the Army of the Shenandoah, that he expected the bounty of the fertile and productive Shenandoah Valley in Virginia to be destroyed, depriving the Confederate armies defending Richmond and Petersburg of food supplies and livestock. Grant was determined to bring the American Civil War to an end by whatever means it took.
Read the entire article in the Sept. 11th issue of the Express.